This invention relates to man-carrying aerial bucket of the type that is mounted on a motor truck or other mobile vehicle and used for a variety of purposes, such as by the electrical utility companies for maintenance work on pole lines, overhead wires, transformers and light fixtures, the trimming of trees and branches for wire clearance, and by state, country, township, municipal and other government branches for maintenance work on overhead highway lights, traffic lights, elevated highway signs, and the like.
Prior art apparatus provided for the above and similar purposes have usually comprised a hydraulically operated telescoping boom mounted on a turret supported on the motor truck or other mobile vehicle, with the turret being continuously rotatable through 360.degree., as by means of a collector block or collector rings.
Collector blocks may be avoided in hydraulic systems, and collector rings may be avoided in electrical systems, at the sacrifice of continuous rotation in one direction. Less expensive devices have been provided by the prior art which are not continuously rotatable through 360.degree. in one direction. The disadvantage of such mechanism is that if the bucket is at say 11 o'clock (on an imaginary clock face) and you want to go to 1 o'clock, the bucket must return counterclockwise through 6 o'clock since the boom is not movable from 11 through 12 to 1 o'clock in a clockwise direction.